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To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (1215)6/28/2006 3:15:48 PM
From: ms.smartest.person  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3198
 
&#8362 David Pescod's Late Edition June 27, 2006

CORRIENTE RESOURCES (T-CTQ) $4.75 -0.20
Ken Shannon, the President of Corriente Resources, is still
relishing recent meals of barbequed Caribou he had in Northern
Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories and is probably
still pondering over the different roles that mining company
executives might have these days versus 10 or 20 years
ago.

He recently escorted a continuant of Shuar Indians from
Ecuador to the northern Canadian locations, that surround
some mining operations, to give the Ecuadorian locals a looksee
at how mining operations can affect aboriginal communities
in northern Canada.

It was quite an experience, Shannon suggests, and he certainly
is appreciative of the mine tour that Cameco (CCO-T) featured
on the trip as well.

The Shuar, which are a native group from Ecuador that has
to be described as fearsome, were one of the last known
groups to practice head hunting in Latin America. They were
up mainly to take a look-see at how they hope to see mining
operations in Ecuador developed and learning from the experience
of the aboriginal groups in northern Canada, but the one
thing that came across to them, Shannon says, was their surprise
that over the vast Canadian northlands (that they flew
over) how very few people there were. In Ecuador, over every
hill there is still more people, but not so in the vast Canadian
north.

The Shuar learned and met first hand some of the natives in
the Canadian mines that started maybe 10 or 15 years ago as
laborers, that have worked themselves up into management
positions or as environmental coordinators or the like, and
how they and the community have benefited from mining development.

Shannon says that this is now one of the major responsibilities
of mining executives—suddenly its not knowing the
competency of your pit or how to transport your ore, crush it
or whatever…..suddenly its learning to live with your social
community and find an agreement with the community around
mining operations no matter where they might be in the world.

He also talks about several examples that exist today,
where an obvious potential mine that has not been developed
because of such problems. Yes they put together the trip and
yes they paid for it, but he figures its just one of the many
hoops that you have to jump through to build a mine in today’s
world. If you don’t do it, maybe the mine doesn’t get
built ...

In the Shuar community, Aurelian Resources has made a recent
major discovery on its Condor project which is in a very
important area —Shuar’s territory in Ecuador.

As far as Corriente’s Mirador Copper-Gold project, Shannon
suggests that they’ve probably got 340 million tones or
enough for a 38 year mine life to produce 25,000 tones per
day. Additional resources could be added, he suggests, but
with that kind of a reserve life ...it should be plenty.

They are currently in negotiations with SNC-Lavalin about
both engineering and construction contracts to build the mine,
and he expects within a few weeks to be able to approach the
Board of Directors with a plan to get the mine built.

When we ask him to predict some commodity prices for
down the road, copper is all important to Corriente, so that’s
the only one he wanted to talk about ...

He suggests, that Corriente’s cost of production should be
roughly $1.00 a pound, so current prices are way more than is
necessary!

When asked about how long copper could maintain some
of these prices, he just points to no new capacity over the last
several years and with the time taken to build new mines these
days, he can’t see much additional capacity for their next four
years. While four to eight years down the road becomes a
little murkier, he wouldn’t be surprised to see many more potential
mines delayed in production, delivering a commodity
cycle longer and stronger than many can remember ...

Canaccord analyst Wendell Zerb recently toured their project
and just a few days ago, when we interviewed him, he
picked Corriente as one of his top picks. Shortly, we hope to
see a report from Wendell and it will interesting to see what
his target might be.

The chart tells you what has happened to Corriente and
many other mining stories over the last while.